A Year in the Life
by Phlux
Summary: The Teen Titans are children no longer – at least, not in the eyes of the criminal underworld. Watch through the eyes of a new member as they struggle to keep Jump City standing. It's going to be one hell of a year.
1. January 1st: New Year's Day

**Author: **Xeric

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by DC Comics, as well as Warner Bros. Entertainment. Original characters and plot lines belong to me. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**A/N: **Boo. The original plan was to write the whole day out as one chapter, but it was turning out a hell of a lot longer than I thought it would. So, broken up into several chapters this day will be. It'll probably be that way the whole way through.

Geez. A whole year? What am I thinking?

**Rating: **M, for violence, _foul language_, gore, adult situations, all that jazz that comes with the M rating. This chapter has some disturbing imagery, for example. So... your call if you want to read it.

**.oOo.**

**A Year In The Life**

**JANUARY 1st, 2008 – NEW YEAR'S DAY**

_A new year._

_Isn't that wonderful. I get to spend it sitting here in the main room, sitting with a green skinned animorph, a titanium-plated cyborg, a hooded empath with a heaping handful of trouble sitting where her emotions should be, and a silver skinned girl who could burn a hole straight through me if I ever pissed her off enough. Robin and Starfire are elsewhere. I don't know where they are, but they certainly aren't here. Just another day in Titan's Tower, I suppose._

_I can't help but feel a tingle of apprehension about this year, though. Something feels off. Argent feels it too. The calm before the storm, she says. I don't know how I feel about the situation. That's likely because there isn't really a huge situation to deal with as of yet. I may just be losing my mind. It wouldn't be the first time._

_I want to punch something._

"Ten!"

_Beast Boy is making himself look like a very compelling target._

"Nine!"

I groaned, rolling my head around from its comfortable resting place on the couch, and glared at the green skinned changeling. He paid me no mind whatsoever, continuing with his excessively enthusiastic countdown. Beast Boy's eyes were fixated on the screen; more precisely, on the large metallic ball descending from the spire erected over Jump City Hall. An obvious copy of Times Square, but hell, they called it a homage and nobody seemed to care. The West Coast's New Year's Celebration, they called it.

I called it a pain in the ass. I was just thankful they didn't make us run the security.

It hadn't even snowed yet this winter.

"Eight!"

I fervently wished that time would hurry up. My head was pounding, and I wanted this pointless celebration to hurry up and _end _so I could go and get some much needed sleep. I mindlessly brushed dust off the blue cargo pants I was wearing.

"Seven!"

Fantastic. Now Cyborg's joined in.

"Six!"

Looks like Raven's going to snap.

"Five!"

My headache is getting worse, and I've got a nervous feeling growing in the pit of my stomach. Slowly, I pushed myself to a sitting position, staring intently at the screen. Something had caught my attention, I just wasn't sure quite what it was yet. What little of the screen I could make out through Beast Boy's flailing limbs revealed nothing to cause any unease.

"Four!"

Argent's noticed it too. She's stopped picking at her jeans, and looked up at the screen. There's a worried look in her eyes I've come to recognize.

"Three!"

Raven's closed her book, and she's watching the screen. My feeling of unease seemed to be spreading around the group. Beast Boy continued his jig, oblivious, but Cyborg noticed the increased attention paid to the screen, and he quieted, focusing on the screen as well. Nobody seemed able to put a name to the disquiet that had settled over the room, but we watched the celebrating crowds on the screen, waiting for an answer to appear.

"Two!"

Beast Boy looked around the room, and saw that we were all focused on the screen. He trailed off, turning to watch the screen as well.

"One."

Beast Boy finished the countdown, but the joy had gone out of his voice, replaced by an audible tone of foreboding. I felt a sudden twinge of guilt at that, but it vanished from my mind when the gigantic metal ball touched down upon the roof of Jump City Hall and promptly exploded into a massive twisting ball of flame and shrapnel. After a chillingly silent moment, screams of terror began echoing through the television speakers. I turned to stare out a window, and I spotted the ballooning firestorm in the distance.

"Holy shit-" I started, but at the same time, Robin's commanding tone boomed from behind the couch, making everyone jump. I had completely missed him coming in; maybe he'd been there the whole time, just skulking in the shadows.

"Titans! Go!"

**.oOo.**

I grimaced as I belted myself into the backseat of the T-Car, staring about me as the other members of the Teen Titans made their own way into a dangerous situation. Beast Boy, Starfire, and Argent could all fly, so they're all fine. Raven could fly as well, but it's a strain on her, I think; I assume that's the reason why she's chosen to ride shotgun in the T-Car, leaving me in the backseat. Robin's got his R-Cycle,

I don't want to whine, I just feel like I should be asking Cyborg to hurry up so I'm not late for soccer practice. I really need to get my own form of transportation. Or Titan's Tower could install some power cables instead of running off a generator.

"All belted in? Shock? Rae?" Cyborg asked, swinging himself into the driver's seat and glancing at the two occupants in his car. I nodded in response, but Raven glared at the cyborg from beneath her hood.

"Don't call me that." Raven ground out, but Cyborg just laughed, and started up the engine. Peeling out of the garage with a slight squeal, he winked at the blue-haired empath.

"You know you like it." Cyborg teased, steering the car across the land bridge. Raven frowned in response, turning her head to \ stare out the window at the surrounding territory. Robin tore past them on his motorcycle, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake. Starfire blazed by, closely tailing Robin as he moved. Cyborg gaped for a moment, before his face settled into a frown. "That's how you want to play, Robin?" Cyborg challenged, shifting a gear in the car and pressing down on the acceleration.

It was silent for a moment in the car, and I stared out the window. The atmosphere in the car was uncomfortable, and I had a feeling that my presence had a lot to do with it. I stared out the window, eagerly watching out for some power lines to appear. I knew they would be coming up shortly; I had a fair bit of experience with this road.

"I don't like it." Raven whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear, and I stiffened in my seat. The uncomfortable feeling in the car seemed to increase, becoming a near-palpable weight in the bottom of my stomach. With an enormous feeling of relief, I spotted the first set of power lines coming up. I opened my mouth to tell Cyborg, but he had already noticed; the car roof was retreating back, converting easily into a convertible. I grimaced as I undid my seatbelt, moving to a crouching position in the seat. Cyborg nodded at me from the rear view mirror. Raven was staring out the window, and I noticed her eyes were fixated on the burning Jump City Hall.

"See you there." I muttered, and pushed off from my seat. Flipping into the air, I extended an arm, reaching towards the power lines I could easily make out despite the darkness. A gleaming arc of electricity shot out of my hand, contacting with the cable and pulling me towards it. I tensed my arm, maneuvering myself around so my feet landed on the cable with practiced ease. I took a brief moment to soak in the feeling of the electricity as it rushed through my body, charging me like a battery, then pushed off towards the burning wreck of Jump City Hall.

I easily overtook the T-Car, where Raven and Cyborg were pointedly not talking to each other. My feet were sending off sparks beneath me as I blazed along the power lines, using the electricity circulating through the power lines to increase my own speed. Argent likes to call it "jolting", this method of faster movement that I use, and it seems to have caught on with the others. I haven't really devoted any energy to giving it a better name.

Moving faster all the while, my feet a sparking white beneath me, I passed Robin and Starfire; the former barely acknowledged me with a nod, the latter with a wave and a smile. It's been hard on Starfire, recently, and I don't know how she keeps smiling. It's hard to imagine her doing otherwise, but still...

I jolted further ahead, finally catching up with Beast Boy and Argent. Argent waved at me as she flew, her dyed red strands contrasting deep black hair, tipping me a small wink. Beast Boy, flapping along in pterodactyl form, loudly screeched at me when I waved. I assumed it was a greeting.

As we rushed towards the flaming wreckage of Jump City Hall, crowds of frantic people flooded the streets beneath us, a massive tide away from the smoking building. Police cars and fire trucks were also hurrying towards the scene, but I could already see a few dark shapes lying on the massive lawn in front of the burning building. The area seemed to be otherwise abandoned.

Grimacing, I increased my speed, jolting ahead of Argent and Beast Boy. I quickly made it to the edge of the lawn, and flipped off the wires, electricity arcing all around me as I slid to a stop in the grass, right next to one of the dark shapes I had spotted before. I realized what it was a moment later, and I swallowed the rising bile in my throat with some difficulty.

I knelt next to the body, taking the pulse as an instinct, but there was no heartbeat. I knew there wouldn't be. One doesn't take a foot long piece of shrapnel through the right temple and wake up the next day with a mild headache. I heard Argent and Beast Boy land behind me, and she cursed loudly when she saw what I was kneeling next too. I heard a wet noise, and turned to see Beast Boy vomiting against a tree. With a sigh, I walked up behind him, patting his shoulder as he wiped his mouth.

Beast Boy turned a sickly face up towards mine. The smell of stomach acid, blood, and smoke hung heavily in the air, and the combination was nearly enough to make me throw up as well. "Who would do this?" Beast Boy asked, his voice frail.

_Who would do this?_

I was asking myself the same question. This kind of attack was unlike anything I'd seen before while I'd been working with the Titans. This was an outright bombing, and that just didn't happen in Jump City. There was always warning. There was always a chance to fend off the strike. Yet there had been nothing in this case. No warning, no obvious threats, no foreshadowing at all. It didn't make any sense.

Cyborg and Raven slid to a stop a moment later, stepping out of the car and staring at the flaming building with grim expressions. A moment later, Starfire and Robin pulled up behind us with a squeal of his tires, and the leader of the Teen Titans immediately began barking out commands. "Titans! Secure the area, make sure that whoever did this doesn't get away! We need to make this area as safe as we can for the fire department, and we need to do it quickly." Robin pushed off his bike, looking around as the police cars and fire trucks began driving into the area. "Starfire, Beast Boy, take the air. Raven, I need you to use your powers to find out if there's still anybody that needs saving under all that. Argent, Cyborg, you're securing the ground. Make sure whoever did this doesn't get out of a three block radius of this point."

A beat of a second passed, and I stared at Robin, who turned to face me with a focused look on his face, as the others scattered to fulfill their instructions. "Shock, we're going to go in there and save whoever we can, and confirm there isn't a secondary explosive." I nodded, and turned to Raven, who had entered her meditative pose. Robin walked over to his R-Cycle, hitting numerous buttons and scanning for any sign of another bomb.

I waited as she hovered in the air, the fires crackling loudly behind us. The police and fire departments were setting up around us, waiting at a safe distance. I was the closest when Raven began to speak, her voice an hauntingly echoing drone. "The mayor is in his office. Three of his aides are with him."

I looked at Robin, who nodded in response. "No sign of a second bomb." he muttered, moving away from his bike towards me. "You heard Raven, let's move. We've got a mayor to save. Raven, keep looking for more people, tell me when you find them." Without another word, Robin started running towards the flaming remains of Jump City Hall. A second later, I followed.

Robin pulled a grappling hook out of his belt and launched it towards the building, vaulting himself upwards and through a third story window. I crouched, taking the energy rushing through me, and focusing it into my legs. With a burst of electricity that scorched the grass beneath me, I launched into the air, spinning slightly as I flew through the same window Robing had passed through, and skidded to a stop on the hardwood floors, sparks flying from my feet. Robin glanced at me, then pulled out his communicator to bring up a map of the building. The air was thick with smoke, so the two of us crouched beneath the roiling black clouds.

I glanced at my watch.

_12:07_.

Less then ten minutes ago, I had been sitting in the Main Room of Titan's Tower, nursing a headache and awaiting the new year. Now here I was, crouching in a burning building and feeling the electric charge I had acquired rushing through me.

"This building is essentially three long hallways, one on each floor, all of them going the length of the building." Robin said, as I listened intently. "The Mayor is in his office, and that's at the far end of this hallway, but the bomb went off right above the middle of the building. We'll need to find an alternate route-" Robin was cut off abruptly when Raven's voice crackled out of the small yellow device.

"_snkktt – Robin! Are you there? " _She sounded shaken, and _that _caught my attention. In my three months so far with the Titans, Raven had _never _sounded shaken.

Robin blinked. "Raven? Have you found somebody else in here?"

"_No, what I've found is far worse._" Robin raised an eyebrow. I shifted slightly, moving my legs to a more comfortable position as I waited for Robin to decide what to do. The smoke was building up above me; at this point the off-white ceiling roof was entirely obscured from view. "_Katarou is there. But he-_"

"Katarou?" Robin interjected. "Wasn't he frozen in Paris?"

I frowned. I hadn't been there for the trouble with the Brotherhood of Doom, but I had watched the aftereffects from afar. More and more of the Titan's Villains Gallery had been showing up on the scene again, up to their old tricks, and despite our efforts we haven't been able to track down whoever had been defrosting them. It had been quiet for the past couple of weeks, and to be honest, I wasn't all that thrilled about the prospect of another super trying to mix it up in the city. It was enough trouble keeping the ones that were already here in check.

"_He's obviously back now, but Robin, he's -different- now. His mind is... tainted, twisted, more so then your standard villain. I missed his him the first time I was looking because I was looking for human minds._" There was a slight pause, and I noticed that Raven's voice was coming from my communicator as well. She was obviously warning all of the Titans. "_I don't know what happened, but it certainly looks like there's some kind of foreign influence affecting his mind._"

"_Well, what are we dealing with, then?_" Cyborg interjected, his voice somewhat hard to make out among all the police sirens he was apparently standing between. The crackling of the fire around us had made it somewhat more difficult to understand what the titanium Titan had been saying. It had started to get uncomfortably warm inside the room we were standing in.

"_Some kind of mind control? Is he a zombie?_" Beast Boy theorized.

"_I don't know what's caused it. I see... green, that's all. All encompassing green. What's important for you to know is that I'm certain that Katarou will not be behaving the way we're used to him behaving._" I glanced at Robin, who had clenched his teeth at that. I shrugged, watching the surrounding room underneath the smoke.

I wasn't sure what this "Katarou" looked like, but I wasn't about to allow it to sneak up on us. I slowly pulled one of the thin metal pipes I carried along with me out of the sheath on my lower leg, spinning it around slightly and letting electricity seep into the metal. About a foot and a half long, it crackled slightly, shooting off sparks onto the hardwood floors, and emitted a slight glow as I charged it with more energy. Robin paid me no mind, focusing on the communicator.

Cyborg had come up with the idea for the pipes about a month back. They had a steel core for durability, but they were plated with hardened silver for better conductivity. I was still learning how to use them to their full potential, but they had been thoroughly useful in making me significantly more dangerous than I had been when I was fighting with just my bare hands.

"So what are we dealing with here?" Robin repeated, his voice steady. A loud cracking noise echoed through the building, followed by a thunderous crash that shook the floor beneath our feet. I wasn't sure exactly what had just happened, but it sounded as though a floor had just collapsed somewhere nearby. "Was it Katarou who set up the bomb?"

"_I'm not precisely sure. I don't know about the bomb. It's unlike Katarou to use explosives, but considering the state of his mind, it's entirely possible that he may have changed his standard tactics._" A slight pause. So slight it was barely noticeable. "_The only thing I can be sure about is that Katarou has gone completely insane. Be careful, Robin. You too, Shock._"

Robin nodded grimly. "I'll be careful." he briskly said, putting the communicator away. He moved towards the door, beyond which I presumed the hallway lay. I followed closely behind him, glowing pipe in hand. Robin glanced at me, reaching for the doorknob. "Mayor's office is to the left of our current position, at the end of the hall. We'll meet up there." I nodded in response, spinning the pipe to calm myself. A small rain of sparks shot away from it onto the ground.

"Katarou?" I asked, curious. Robin's hand tightened slightly on the doorknob.

"One of our old enemies. Martial artist. He favors a staff." Robin said shortly towards the door, and I raised an eyebrow. Apparently I had hit a sore spot. "He's normally not any trouble at all. He's a hyped-up burglar, basically. What's he's doing here is unusual." Robin took a breath, and opened the door.

Smoke poured into the room from the hallway, as Robin and I dove out onto the lush red carpet of the hallway. We both looked down the long path and spotted the familiar ornate door of the mayor's office, barely visible through fire and smoke, and we started to move in an awkwardly hunched run towards it. The smoke rushed above us, moving in the same direction as we were. I realized why a moment later, when we abruptly came to a stop.

The hallway we were in was evidently directly below where the metal sphere had gone off, and as a result a massive hole had been blown in the roof. The smoke was rushing out of the building through the gap, and through the flames I could spot the encircling police cars and fire trucks. What made us stop so suddenly was that the explosion had evidently weakened the structure of the building, making the floors collapse, which was the likely explanation for the tremendous crash I had heard earlier.

The resultant situation left Robin and I standing in front of a gaping hole that had gouged its way through the three floors in the building, leaving a fifty foot wide hole that was partially aflame and evidently went all the way down into the basement. I stared at the sight, shocked at the devastation, and turned to Robin. The red-and-green clad hero turned to me, a dark look on his face. "We'll have to be quick. Get in, get the mayor and his aides, get out. Katarou will have to wait. This building won't be standing much longer at this rate."

I nodded. "Got it." Facing the mayor's door again, I crouched, focusing energy in my legs. Robin leaped into the gap, firing off a grappling hook and vaulting easily across the gap. Once I felt the familiar buzzing in my legs, I launched forward into the air, trailing sparks in my wake as I twirled in the air. I covered my face with my forearms as I burst through the flames, rolling to a stop on the other side of the gap.

Robin looked down at me as I pushed myself to my feet. "Looks like you're improving. I guess all that training was worth it after all."

I ignored the jibe, moving forwards towards the mayor's door with a frown as I tightly grasped the metal pole in my grasp. Robin matched my pace step for step, and we came to a stop on the wide double doors that heralded the entrance to the mayor's office. I had been here before, after the Titans had acknowledged my presence on the team – the mayor had been anxious to meet yet another superhuman willing to be highly visible publicity for the city.

The Teen Titans, if nothing else, had been good for tourism.

_12:11._

I had glanced at my watch as Robin and I took up positions on either side of the door. Dimly, over the sound of crackling wooden supports and flaming furniture, I could hear muffled sounds emanating through the doors. Robin held up three fingers. I watched, tightening my grip on the pole as his fingers flicked down. Two. One.

_WHAM!_

Robin kicked in the door, diving into the plush room with bo staff in hand. I quickly followed, moving beside Robin, with the sparking pipe held up in front of me in a defensive pose. "Alright, Katarou, put your hands... up..."Robin started, but quickly trailed off at the scene in front of us. I spotted what he had at the exact same time, and nearly threw up on the spot. Swallowing back bile for the second time that night, I stared in disgust at the scene before me.

"Oh, God." I murmured, feeling nauseous. When I took a deep breath, the odors in the room nearly overwhelmed my stomach, which violently recoiled again and nearly escaped my control. Robin looked like he was as queasy as I felt.

A hulking Asian man was standing behind the mayor's desk, wearing a high-necked white shirt with a deep v-neck that exposed a good deal of his torso, and pants that apparently stopped just below his knees. I would have thought he looked entirely ridiculous, if not for the fact that his garments were liberally spattered with blood. He seemed to be wielding some kind of ceremonial knife, obviously well used – blood ran all the way up his massive forearm. A clunky pendant was around his neck, with a sickeningly green emerald set into it. However, what drew our horrified attention was not Katarou's appearance, but instead the image of the person lying on the desk.

I didn't want to look – but like a magnet, the horrifying sight drew my vision. A man was strapped to the desk, and judging by the shock of red hair, it was – had been – the mayor. Judging by the wounds on the body, he had been completely eviscerated. I could make out gleaming entrails, and what looked like the small intestine had been pulled out, hanging over the edge of the desk. Ribs had been broken and pulled up, standing up along the torso like bloodied statues. My gaze came up to the face, and I noticed that the eyes were still moving.

With a shock of horror, I realized that the horribly maimed person in front of me was still alive.

"Oh, God." I repeated, and Robin echoed me this time.

"Ah, Robin." Katarou said, his voice rough, as though his throat had been torn apart as much as the ravaged man on the desk before him. He spoke with the air of someone who had just noticed that we had entered the room. Well, he didn't seem to notice me, but judging by the behavior of the man, I was perfectly fine with being ignored. The huge man's eyes were a brilliant shade of green, I noticed, that almost seemed to be emitting their own light. "How nice of you to join me. Did you like my little performance? I'm ever so fond of it."

"You're sick, Katarou." Robin replied, his eyes flickering around the room. I noticed the three aides Raven had mentioned sitting against the wall, one of whom was covered in blood herself. They all looked understandably traumatized by the situation. I started shifting discreetly towards them, intending to get them out of this room and as far away from the blood-drenched madman in front of me. "Was it you who planted the bomb?"

Katarou did not seem to have heard Robin's question. "Little tendrils of fate, circling around the world... a triumph of dedication and persistence... it's wondrous the colors one can see from this side of the ether." Slowly, the top-heavy man began to move around the desk, spinning the ceremonial knife in his hand. Flecks of blood scattered across the room.

"Don't move!" Robin commanded, holding out his staff in an attack position, but Katarou paid him no mind. The insane man's eyes glinted green as he fixated his gaze on the masked hero. I tightened my grip on the pipe, turning as Katarou approached, trying to keep the aides at my back. "I said _don't move!_" Robin struck out with his staff, jabbing it towards the Asian man's head, but he stopped just out of range.

Katarou shook his head, vibrant eyes gleaming. "Robin, Robin, Robin..." he said mockingly. Light from the fires in the hallway glinted off the green gemstone in the dull golden pendant on his neck, and my eyes widened. _Green, Raven?_ I thought, mind racing. _Is that what you meant? Is it the pendant?_ I glanced discreetly at Robin, and although the mask obscured his eyes, I could tell Robin's gaze was fixed on the pendant as well. My gaze jerked back up to Katarou when I realized he was talking again. "There's so much you don't understand. The world is a wondrous place... but the world's beyond it are even more magnificent."

"The only world you're going to be seeing from now on is _prison_." Robin snarled, and I felt a distinct urge to roll my eyes. Restraining myself from doing so, I continued shifting towards the terrified aides. I wasn't sure how I was going to get them out, but smashing open a window and _throwing _them out seemed a safer alternative to allowing them to remain in the room with Katarou.

"Faith, Robin." Katarou smirked, apparently ignoring my slow approach towards the aides. "You have so little. Your focus on the material things in life... puny ideals like justice and right and wrong... I was like that once. Now, I see the world for what it is." He took a long, deliberate step towards Robin, towering over the smaller teen hero.

Robin jabbed out with his staff, but Katarou dodged the blow easily, leaning over to the side. "Faith, Robin. Faith is what makes me strong. The lack thereof makes one more weak than one can imagine. I'm afraid you fall into that category, but I wish it were otherwise. In faith, there are no enemies. We could be as close as brothers." He took another long step towards Robin.

"You're insane, Katarou!" Robin bit out, moving in a curved path as Katarou approached him, obviously trying to pull the Asian man's gaze away from me. I finally backed into the wall, right beside the three aides. I glanced down at them, and almost wished I hadn't; three terrified people, two women and one man, all staring blankly into the room with horrified expressions.

Looking to my right, I noticed that the window was open, evidently having smashed at some earlier point. I knelt down next to the three, and picked up one of the women, letting the charge seep out of the pipe back into me. I kept an eye on Katarou as he moved, but he was still facing the opposite direction. Cradling the lady in my arms, I leaped out of the window, landing on the grassy lawn three floors below with a burst of sparks that scorched the grass.

A large chunk of the far end of the building crumbled as I rushed towards the police cars. Skidding to a stop next to an ambulance, I deposited the lady onto a stretcher. She continued staring blankly into space, her face still locked in that same horrified look. EMT's scrambled around me, asking the lady questions I didn't hear.

I doubted she heard them either. I rushed back towards the mayor's office, leaping over a corpse along the way.

"_snkktt – Shock? What's going on? Have you found Katarou?_" Cyborg.

I pulled out the yellow communicator as I ran. "Yeah, I have. I really _goddamn _wish I hadn't. The guy's completely_ fucking _insane." I was shouting, but with the noise of the burning building and the circus of fire trucks and police cars, I think I had the right. Not to mention what I had witnessed. "I need some help extracting some hostages from the mayor's office-" A brief pause. "Starfire, Argent, help me out here."

"_Certainly!" _Starfire.

"_On my way._" Argent.

"_Hey, I can help too!" _Beast Boy.

I shook my head. "No, Beast Boy. You... shouldn't see this."

"_What do you mean by-_"

I shut my communicator off, and shoved it into my pocket; I had reached the area beneath the mayor's office. After a moment to charge, I leaped up onto the windowsill, and hopped down into the room. Katarou and Robin were still circling each other, the latter making occasional jabs at the former, who dodged the attacks easily as he spoke.

I charged up the gleaming pipe again as I waited for the familiar sounds of Argent and Starfire swooping up behind me, and watched Katarou intently. The crazy little bastard was _still _talking, as he methodically approached Robin, who continued circling out of range, buying me time.

"There's so much I've seen... glorious twisting gleaming horrific lifeforms, at a size beyond understanding, beyond _imagination_... fantastic sights that I thought mere myth so recently, but now I have come to realize... there is _no _existence that my new god does not allow... everything is how he commands it to be... he sees all... and I, his loyal servant, see all as well..."

"Oh, yeah?" Robin ground out, swinging his staff. Katarou ducked effortlessly, completely unruffled by the attack. I heard Starfire's familiar _swoosh_ as she flew up behind me. Slowly, I bent down and picked up the blankly-staring man, and grunted with the effort as I passed him through the window over to Starfire, who lifted him easily with her alien strength. She launched off towards the police cars, and Argent swept down in her place, holding out her arms for the last hostage. I picked up the bloodstained woman, whose hands were shaking, and held her out through the window to the floating red-and-black haired girl.

My ears pricked up when Katarou began to speak again. Argent froze, listening as the madman spoke, his voice a twisted cadence, like tires grinding on gravel. "Yes, Robin, I see all... including your paltry efforts to distract me from the actions of your allies." Katarou laughed at the shocked look on Robin's face, and I winced. "Do you think I would allow those useless beings to be removed from my presence if I had any remaining use for them?"

"What do you want with them? What is your plan?" Robin snarled.

"My plan, Robin?"

I turned to Argent, frantically waving her off. "Go! _Go!"_ I muttered, and Argent nodded, flying off with the last hostage. I glanced at the mayor, whose eyes had finally closed. The morbid thought occurred to me that he had probably used Robin's distraction of his tormentor as a chance to die.

"My plan is to sacrifice the purity of life, the shining light of hope, the very essence of humanity... for it is useless, mottled flesh around the true meaning of existence. There is nothing too great, nothing too _unworthy_ to lend to the fire. I will open the cursed gate my god desires... and bring him to the throne that has rightfully been his since the dawn of time. Oh, but trust me, Robin...

"Trust me, Robin..." Katarou's voice settled down to a sickening purr. "The roads will be rivers of destruction, and the soil permanently stained with the lifeblood of the masses of this cursed city before I am done with you... and your little friend."

Robin's face contorted briefly, and he screamed, striking out at the bloodstained villain. "You'll not _touch her!_" Robin yelled, swinging his staff for Katarou's neck. Katarou ducked, and so did Robin, as he swung for Katarou's legs. Far more agilely then I would of thought possible for such a large man, Katarou hopped over the blow.

"Yaaaaaaaaa!" Robin yelled again, swinging for Katarou's head, but instead of dodging the blow, Katarou raised his hand and easily caught the staff. Robin gaped, trying to pull the staff out of Katarou's grip, but the large man seemed unaffected by his efforts.

"_Interesting..._" Katarou noted, grinning maniacally at Robin, his eyes bulging. The pendant glinted darkly, drawing my gaze like a magnet. "I did not name the friend I was referring to... but now I see... the robin fights for the fire..." Katarou leaned towards Robin, still holding the bo staff in his hand, and raised his other arm. I realized, with a shock, that he was still holding the blood-soaked dagger. "In that case... I see what must be done."

The arm with the knife started to come back. Robin gritted his teeth, leaping back, but he started too late, and he was moving too slowly.

_WHAM!_

I entered the fight. A fully charged pipe slammed across Katarou's forehead, sending him flying back against the bookshelves along the wall. Robin fell back, reaching into his utility belt for another staff.

CRASH!

The bookshelves toppled over on top of Katarou as he tumbled to the ground. The pendant clanked against the ground as books pummeled the Asian man when they fell from the shelves. With a grunt, Katarou pushed the shelves off him, and stood up, still clenching the dagger tightly in his fist.

"You interfere with things far beyond your understanding, boy." Katarou spat out, glaring at me. For the first time, he seemed angry.

My earlier trepidation had vanished, and I just glared back at the crazed man. "Shut the fuck up." I retorted simply, spinning the pipe in my hand. Robin extended his second bo staff. Katarou grimaced, and looked down, apparently noticing he was still holding the bo staff he had taken from Robin. He spun the staff, moving into a ready position I recognized from training sessions with Robin.

"He knows how to use the staff, watch out." Robin muttered out of the corner of his mouth, and I nodded in response, gritting my teeth.

Katarou attacked, leaping forward and slamming the staff down against the ground where Robin and I had been standing a second before. _W-WHAM! _The ground split open from the blow, hardwood cracking open and revealing that room on the floor below was entirely aflame.

I ran at Katarou, swinging the pipe, but he moved the bo staff to block me. C-CLANK! Sparks flew as the metal poles clashed, and I let electricity charge into the staff, which went straight to Katarou. Katarou only grinned at the pain, and I gaped, jumping back. Katarou held up his hand, and I noticed it was bleeding, dripping onto the ground.

Robin swung from behind, and Katarou turned to block, pushing Robin back easily with his staff. I leaped over the growing hole in the ground – chunks of the wooden floor were falling into the fires below, leaving only the steel supports criss-crossing the room – and moved to hit Katarou in the back. The man reached back blindly and batted me away with a huge hand.

CRASH! I slammed into the wall with a groan. Shaking my head, I went at Katarou again, who nearly had Robin pressed up against the wall. A blast of heat sprung up in front of me, fire from the room below licking at my feet. I shook my head, steeled myself, and leaped over the growing hole with a yell. "Ayaaaah!"

My feet crashed into Katarou's back, and he stumbled forward, his head smashing into an intact window. _SMMMASH! _Glass fountained outwards into the night from the collision. The ceremonial dagger fell from the huge man's hand as Katarou turned around to face Robin and I once again after a moment.

I gaped. A large piece of glass was stuck in Katarou's forehead, but he didn't seem to notice. After a moment, Katarou's tongue flicked around his face, licking up the blood that was running down his cheek from the wound.

"Oh, come on..." I muttered, disgusted even further, as Katarou turned his maniacal bloodstained grin towards me. The huge man lunged forwards, swinging the staff. I flipped backwards, and the staff dented a revealed steel support in the floor. _CLLANG! _

I barely made it to the other side of the growing gap, balancing on the side for a moment before I stumbled back against the wall. I looked through the rising haze of heat over at Robin, who seemed unaffected by the increasingly dangerous situation. The leader of the Teen Titans had his gaze firmly locked on Katarou, a furious expression on his face.

"There is so much you don't understand, Robin..." Katarou uttered softly, barely audible over the crackling fires and the falling floors. He balanced easily on a steel support, blood streaming from his hand and forehead. Behind him, the mayor's desk fell through the floor, smashing into pieces on the floor below. I stared, horrified, as the mayor's body was consumed by the flames.

"You never learn..." Katarou added, and I noticed his voice was a _lot _closer to me than it should have been. I looked up to see Katarou standing directly in front of me, swinging his fist towards my face. I blocked the blow with my forearm, but it sent me stumbling back. I nearly tipped over again, but managed to balance, stepping out onto one of the steel supports. I held the pole out in front of me, and it crackled with energy.

Robin moved onto the support next to me, holding out his bo staff. "It's all over, Katarou!"

Katarou laughed maniacally, shaking his head at the two of us. "Oh, no, Robin... this dance is just beginning." Katarou moved to a crouch, and closed his eyes. The pendant hanging from his neck glowed brightly, an all-encompassing glow that filled the room. I held up my other hand, covering my eyes from the glare.

The light receded just in time for me to see Katarou leap directly upwards, smashing through the roof. He flipped out of sight, laughing all the while. I gaped at the hole he had gouged in the roof.

"Is he running away?" I asked dumbly.

"I'm not letting him get away!" Robin yelled, pulling out a grappling hook. He aimed for the hole Katarou had made, but the building was shaking too much for him to get a clean shot. He grimaced, putting it away. "Shock, get up there and keep him occupied until I get there!"

I stared at the green-and-red clad hero for a second, before his orders managed to penetrate my brain. "Uh... on it, chief." Jumping over to the place Katarou had leaped, I crouched, charging energy into my limbs. A second later I was twirling in the air, easily making it through the hole and landing on the roof on bended knee.

I quickly stood up on the gravel rooftop - no easy task, consider how much the building was shaking – and stared about to try and spot Katarou. Spinning about in place, silver pipe held aloft and sparking, I finally spotted the hulking Asian man standing at the edge of the gaping hole the bomb had made in the building.

"I'm not familiar with you, mysterious Titan..." Katarou uttered, turning to face me. I couldn't make out his expression, but I could still see the pendant on his chest. It glowed brightly, apparently producing its own light. "but my god knows you very well. Oh, yes, he does..." Katarou slowly moved towards me, pendant glinting evilly. I tightened my grip on the pipe, charging as much energy into it as I dared.

"He knows how you feel about the Titans... he knows the powers you possess... he knows... he knows..." Katarou paused, ten feet away from me, and took a deep breath. The blood on his face gleamed in the firelight. "He knows _why _you joined the Titans... he knows exactly what you are seeking..."

I paled, shaking my head wordlessly. Katarou grinned maniacally at me. "Oh, yes, _Shock_, he knows. Rest assured, he is watching, and those who seek to stop him will burn, along with those they hold dear..." the large man's voice curled off suggestively, but I had stopped listening.

"RAAUGGH!" I roared, leaping towards the man. I swung the pipe for his head, and he rolled to the side. My blow slammed into the gravel atop the roof, and the electricity rushed out of the pipe into the ground. _BOOOOOM! _The charge blew a hole in the rooftop ten feet wide in front of me, and dust and rocks scattered high into the air.

Unfazed, I swung to the side, pipe sparking through the air towards the Asian villain. He blocked with his arm, bracing his feet against the ground to bear the blow. The electricity arcing around the pipe cut open his arm in several places, but he didn't seem to notice the blood streaming from the wounded limb.

"_She will burn_." Katarou hissed into my face. I felt flecks of blood and spit spatter against my face, grimaced, and pressed on. Abruptly, I pushed away, spinning around and aiming for the crazed man's skull.

_C-CLANK! _

This time, he blocked with the bo staff, pressing back against me. He kicked out with his boot, and I caught the foot, leaping into the air and kicking the larger man in the face. He stumbled back, coming perilously close to the flaming hole in the roof.

Regaining his balance, Katarou started towards me, spinning the bo staff dangerously. He swung for my head, and I blocked with the sparking pipe. _CLANK! _He moved for the other side of my head. _CLANK!_ Foot to the chest. I rolled out of the way, leaving Katarou to stumble forwards awkwardly.

Katarou recovered faster then I expected, and leaped towards me while gripping the staff over his head with both hands. I held up the pipe with both hands, and it took the blow as he swung towards my skull. _**CLANK!**_ The force of the blow nearly knocked me to my knees. The pendant flew forward on Katarou's neck and smacked against my chest, and I gritted my teeth at the shockingly cold feeling it left on my skin through my shirt.

"My god will be _pleased _with your sacrifice._" _Katarou snarled, kicking me in the chest. I tumbled back across the ground, coming up onto my feet immediately, but Katarou was already upon me again.

I rolled under his upraised leg, which slammed down onto the ground where my head had been a moment before with an audible _THUNK!_ Katarou spun around immediately and kicked at me, but I flipped back and over the attack, landing on top of an air conditioning unit.

The bo staff whistled through the air as Katarou struck. _WHAM!_ The unit warped under the force of the blow, but I had already flipped up and over Katarou, and landed in a crouch behind his legs.

I swung the charged pipe from behind the large man, connecting with the back of his kneecap. _T-THUD! _Katarou tumbled over with a crash, and I stood up, raising my leg to kick Katarou in the face. He raised his hands, grabbing me by the foot.

_Shit._

"HAA-YAAA!" Katarou yelled, swinging me by the foot and throwing me thirty feet away into an air conditioning duct. _THUNK! _I fell to the ground, groaning in pain. Struggling to push myself to my feet, I heard Katarou's limping footsteps approaching my prone body.

"A valiant effort..." Katarou murmured, coming to a stop next to me. I rolled onto my back, staring up at the insane man. My eyes seemed to be having trouble resolving him, he looked very blurry, surrounded by a haze of _green_. The eyes... I could only see his eyes... "My god applauds your valor. He _so _likes to consume heroic souls."

"Your god will be consuming nothing!" An unexpected voice shouted. "HYAAAAH!" Starfire rocketed directly into Katarou from the side, knocking him flying. Dazedly, I rose to a sitting position, staring at the scene with shock.

Katarou had somehow returned to his feet, and was grappling with the Tamaranian hero on the gravel rooftop. Surprisingly, he seemed to almost be her equal in strength, pushing her back a step for every two steps he lost. I heard footsteps approaching me, and I looked up to see Robin extending a hand towards me.

"Good job in keeping him here." Robin said, turning away immediately and running towards the battle.

"You're welcome." I sarcastically said to the air, shook my head to clear it, and dove back into the fight. Katarou noticed us coming and shifted his weight, swinging Starfire around and throwing her forcefully into Robin. The two collapsed in a pile, yelling loudly. I charged in, holding the pipe above my head.

Katarou moved to block me, and I smirked, focusing on my legs. Sparks blasted from my feet, and I dramatically increased my speed. I blurred past Katarou, skidded to a stop behind him, and smashed him forcefully in the back. He lurched forward several steps, nearly falling to his knees.

Robin had regained his footing, and had moved in front of Katarou. "RAAAUGH!" He gritted his swung upwards with the bo staff with a roar, hitting the huge man solidly in the chin. The force of the blow actually knocked Katarou up into the air. I saw a gleaming tooth spiral out into the night.

Starfire took advantage of Katarou's position to grip him around the waist. She spiraled up thirty feet into the air and forcefully threw him back down onto the gravel rooftop. _W-WHAM!_ Dust flew into the air, and Starfire landed a moment later.

Katarou wheezed loudly, struggling for breath as we circled him. "F-fools..." he gasped, blood flowing from his mouth, as well as from his other wounds. "Your efforts a-are for n-naught..." The pendant started to glow again. I leaped towards it, pipe held aloft, intending to smash it to pieces. A _force_ stopped my attack, smashing me in the stomach and sending me flying across the rooftop. I rolled to a stop right next to the hole from the mayor's office, groaning in pain.

"_**AID ME, DREAD LORD!**_" Katarou's voice boomed, cutting through the haze of pain, far louder than it had been before. The rooftop was bathed in a sickening shade of green for a second. A moment later, I heard Robin grunt, and Starfire shriek.

I rose to my knees, noticing first that the building was shaking extremely violently. The second thing I noticed was Robin flying high above in the air, gripping his stomach tightly and in obvious pain. I rose to my feet, shaking my head, and struggled to balance. My stomach swooped nauseatingly as the rooftop started to give beneath my feet.

C-C-C-C-_C-C-CRACK!_

I scrambled towards the edge of the roof, charging energy in my legs as I ran. I made it to the edge and blasted off into the night seconds before the roof collapsed, along with the rest of the building.

_CRASSSSSSSSSSSH!_

With dust and ash ballooning underneath me, I flipped through the air and skidded to a stop at an intersection filled with police cars. I ducked behind a police car, beside three panicked cops who stared at me with frantic eyes as the dust from the building's collapse overtook the car.

It was bizarrely tranquil, standing in the dust, after the building had finished falling and the thunderous noise had quieted. I could barely see a foot in front of me, and the viselike grip of one of the cops upon my arm was the only reminder that there was a world beyond what I could see. The situation was... oddly _familiar_, somehow.

Prying the hand off my arm, I started making my way through the dust-filled air. It was gradually settling around me, and under the orange streetlights it almost looked as though snow was falling. _I suppose that's the ash,_ I mused, passing between two dust-covered police cars. Some of the windows in the cars were broken, I noted.

The area was incredibly quiet after the collapse of Jump City Hall, which was likely the reason I managed to hear Raven.

"..._azarath, metrion, zinthos..."_

I spun in place, turning in the direction I had heard her voice from. Three cops stumbled out of the dust, wandered past me in a dazed fashion, and vanished just as quickly as they appeared. I started towards Raven, walking over a police car in the process. The cops inside were too stunned to object.

A moment later, I walked into an anomalously clean circular area, at the center of which was Raven. She was surrounded by numerous police officers, all of whom were clean, as well as loudly discussing what had just happened. With particularly violent invectives.

I came to a stop besides Raven, who didn't acknowledge my presence beyond a nod. She resumed her meditation, and a couple seconds later Cyborg burst out of the dust. The police officers were starting to dissipate from Raven, moving into the dust to aid others who may have been injured. Soon, it was just Raven, Cyborg and I, two of us standing and staring at each other, the third levitating in between.

"Dude..." Cyborg started, turning to stare into the dust. "What happened?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but then I heard a familiar swoosh above us. We looked up in time to spot Argent, who was straining to hold Robin aloft by the shoulders. They hit the ground solidly enough that I winced, and once Argent managed to stand again she stomped over to me.

"What in the hell happened up there?!" Argent yelled, her eyes frantic. "You could have died! Are you completely daft?" Her hair was covered in dust, I noted absently.

"Part of the job, isn't it?" I retorted, shrugging with a frown. Argent frowned, and opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again when Robin cleared his throat behind her.

"Did any of you see where Katarou went?"

"You kidding, dawg? I was a bit distracted by _JUMP CITY HALL _collapsing!" Cyborg yelled, waving his arms. Raven frowned, not responding to Robin's question. I shrugged, and Argent shook her head, sending up a small cloud of dust.

Robin frowned, gritting his teeth. He looked around the group, and he raised a black eyebrow. "Has anyone seen Starfire?"

"Last time I saw her, she was flying towards the building." Argent said, gesturing towards where Jump City Hall had previously stood. "Well, the former building." In the quiet moment that followed, I glanced at my watch. I wiped the dust off it, and blinked when I saw the time.

_12:37._

I could barely believe it. The whole ordeal had barely taken more then half an hour, but it had felt like days to me. I looked up into the smoke-filled night when I heard the beating of wings, and spotted a familiar green pterodactyl flapping towards our little group.

"Starfire." Beast Boy gasped, as he fell to the ground in front of us and immediately transformed back into an elf. We all stared at the changeling as he struggled for breath. "I saw it. He took Starfire."

In the silence that followed Beast Boy's terrible proclamation, I noticed that snow had finally started to fall.


	2. New Year's Day, Part 2

**A/N: **God, I love italics.

* * *

**JANUARY 1st, 2008: NEW YEAR'S DAY, PART 2**

_Tonight really could have gone a lot better. _

"Where could he have taken her?" Cyborg asked the room, typing rapidly at a nearby computer console. Nobody answered him, but I was wondering about the answer to his question. I had been asking it to myself constantly since Beast Boy had told us the unwelcome news of Starfire's capture. I assumed we all were.

Raven meditated in a shadowed corner of the room, murmuring her mantra over and over as she ostensibly searched for Starfire's mental presence. Beast Boy paced around the dining table looking surprisingly pensive, while I lounged on the couch, my hand over my eyes as I nursed my resurgent headache and tried to ignore the pain of the blows Katarou had inflicted upon me. The cold chill where the pendant had hit my chest still remained, although it was less jarringly cold than it had been before. Argent was in the gym working off some aggression, as far as I knew.

Starfire's location was unknown, which was the source of our current problem.

Robin's location was also a mystery. After a brief but intense questioning of Beast Boy, Robin had gone curiously silent. He had hopped on his dust-covered R-Cycle and motored off into the city, leaving the rest of us staring at his departing form. He hadn't been at the Tower when we got there, but to be honest, I hadn't expected him to be. I had my suspicions as to why he had left, and judging by overheard whispered conversations between the other members, I wasn't alone in my guess.

The lights of the police cars were still plainly visible in the distance, but the familiar structure of Jump City Hall had vanished from the landscape. The sound of dozens of sirens wafted through the open window, along with the occasional flake or two of snow.

"I don't understand this!" Beast Boy yelled, gripping his head with his hands. "Why would he take Starfire? How could he just vanish into thin air like that?" Beast Boy seemed to be asking the room, but none of us had any answers for him.

I recalled what Beast Boy had told us about Starfire's capture before; apparently, he had been flying over to try and help with the fight when Katarou had made his request to his "dread lord", and had seen Katarou – apparently glowing bright green at the time – knock Robin flying a hundred feet into the air with a single blow. He'd then grabbed Starfire by the shoulders, spun in place, and vanished in a cloud of green mist just before City Hall collapsed into a pile of rubble.

"Okay." Cyborg muttered, standing up from the console. I glanced over at him as he moved to the front of the room. His normally-gleaming titanium body was covered in dust. It reflected on how worried Cyborg was about Starfire that he hadn't immediately gone to polish his metal parts upon arrival at the tower.

"Okay." Cyborg repeated, coming a stop before the main screen. "Here's the situation, Titans. Katarou vanished with Starfire approximately twenty-two minutes ago. Her communicator isn't responding to any of our tracking mechanisms. Our teammate and _friend _is in the hands of a madman, and we need to find her before he hurts her. We don't know where he's gone, but we do have one lead."

"The pendant." Raven stated, still hovering in the corner, her eyes shut. Cyborg nodded, and pressed a button on his wrist. An image of the familiar golden pendant appeared up on the screen.

"Dude..." Beast Boy breathed, moving up behind the couch. "That's _creepy_."

I had to agree. Considering the conditions I had been under when we engaged Katarou, I had not had the opportunity to inspect the pendant around the man's neck, but having it up on the screen brought the details of the pendant into sharp focus. There were disconcerting etchings ringing the hexagonal green emerald that was embedded in the front of the dull golden neckpiece. From what I could see, they all depicted grotesque tortures and human suffering.

Most off-putting of all was the emerald, however. It was colored a noxious shade of green that made me sick just looking at it, and clearly visible within the emerald lay a human eyeball. I couldn't tell what color the eye was, but it seemed to be staring directly at me. I shuddered, looking away.

"This pendant has been known by various names; it is one of the oldest known artifacts in existence, originally having been found in a pharaoh's tomb in the early twentieth century. It has traveled across the world, and left ruins in its wake. Every person that has ever tried it on has immediately gone completely insane; every person that's tried it on died shortly afterwards. Even touching it is rumored to be enough to transfer the 'curse' of this pendant." Cyborg looked around the group. "It is called the Eye of La'gohl, and it is the true enemy we face."

"How did Katarou get it?" Raven asked quietly. We were all paying rapt attention.

"It was reported stolen from Jump City Museum about three hours before the bombing of Jump City Hall. Katarou was witnessed taking the object on several security cameras, but he didn't show up again until we encountered him in the mayor's office."

I swallowed discreetly. Remembering the tortured body of the mayor was not something I _ever _wanted to do.

"Why was this thing even in the city?" Beast Boy burst out, waving his hands in the air. "And why would Katarou even want to _steal_ the thing, if it drives everyone who touches it crazy!?"

Cyborg frowned. "As far as I can tell, a citizen in the city inherited the Eye from a relative in Europe who suffered an untimely death. This citizen wanted nothing to do with the pendant, and donated it to the museum. The museum was happy to accept such a storied artifact, even knowing how dangerous it could be." Cyborg's face twisted. "It was going to be the centerpiece of a new exhibit. Obviously, Katarou heard about it and decided to steal it. At some point he tried it on, which leads us to our current situation."

"So how does it work?" Argent asked, leaping over the back of the couch and landing beside me with a dull thump. I blinked in surprise, having missed the silver-skinned girl coming into the room.

Cyborg shrugged. "I'm not one to believe in curses, but-"

"Dude, you live in a gigantic T with a bunch of superheroes." Beast Boy interjected. "I don't think a curse is that unbelievable."

Cyborg glared at Beast Boy for a second before turning to Argent. "How exactly the pendant does what it does is unknown; the thing's been studied by hundreds of people, and they've all came up with the same result – squat." Cyborg clicked another button on his wrist, and several blocks of text showed up on the screen. "The thing seems to resist everyone that studies it, as everyone comes up with different answers. There's only been one consistent trend."

He clicked another button on his wrist, and several sections of text were highlighted.My eyes flickered over each one:

_... it feels as though the pendant is studying me more than I'm studying it ... _

_... a definite "presence" follows this object, and when I am alone in the room with it, it seems as though there is someone standing in there with me, just hiding out of sight ..._

_... a consistent sensation of being watched and observed whenever I am near the artifact ..._

"The one consistent aspect of this pendant that everyone – without exception – has reported is that it seems to have some sort of awareness about it's situation." Cyborg summarized, clicking his wrist to bring the image of the pendant back up onto the screen. "There's some quality about this pendant that unnerves everyone that approaches it."

Beast Boy shuddered. "It freaks me out just _looking _at it."

Argent lifted her hand. "Why would the Egyptians make this bloody thing?" she asked, leaning forward.

"They didn't make it." Cyborg replied.

I blinked. "Didn't you say that it was found in a pharaoh's tomb?" I asked, curious.

"I did, but this thing doesn't match anything else made by the Egyptians in the time the pharaoh was buried. It was made by someone else, but nobody knows who for sure." Cyborg clarified, clicking another button on his wrist. An image of a nearly-featureless stone box appeared on the screen; there was a lone hieroglyphic written on the lid. "This is the box the Eye was found in. The thing was hidden in its own private room." The image flickered, and the hieroglyph was suddenly huge upon the screen. "This hieroglyph was the only thing written within ten feet of the box."

"What does it mean?" Beast Boy asked. Raven made a noise in the corner, and we all turned to look, but she kept her eyes shut and didn't do anything more.

Our gazes flicked back to Cyborg, who looked grim as he pulled his gaze away from Raven. "As far as anyone can tell, all it says is _cursed."_

"So they knew it was cursed, but they still threw it in there with the pharaoh?" I asked, confused. "I thought the Egyptians believed that everything buried with the pharaoh went with him to the afterlife."

"I guess they really didn't like the guy." Beast Boy muttered. "Anyways, Cyborg... I appreciate the history lesson and all, but can you tell us exactly how this all helps us _find Starfire_?"

"I'm getting to that, Beast Boy." Cyborg uttered wearily. "We've got one point in our favor. The pendant actually emits a unique type of radiation, but it does so in exceedingly small amounts. It's possible to track Katarou's movements through scanning for this radiation." Cyborg clicked a button, and an overhead map of the city popped up. Four pulsating red dots appeared on the screen. "Unfortunately, it only works if there's enough of a concentration of the radiation for the Tower's sensors to pick it up. It means Katarou has to stay in one place for at least three minutes for him to show up on the map.

"He's exceedingly dangerous, and obviously has no problem with killing, so if any of you come in contact with him, _be careful_." Cyborg's voice was quiet, and I nodded in agreement. He crossed his arms. "This is an unusual situation, but I know we can handle it."

"You said 'any of you'." Raven muttered, settling down on the ground. "What are you going to be doing instead?" she asked as she stood, raising her hood over her head and turning away from the group.

"I'll stay at the Tower to coordinate the search, and so I can tell you if he pops up again." Cyborg replied, looking over at the hooded empath. "The rest of you will go to these three locations. I've already sent the data to your communicators, so we'll need to get a move on. It's been half an hour since Katarou took Starfire, and we can't let her get hurt because we were too late to save her.

"So, Argent – you'll take the docks. Katarou spent about seven minutes at a warehouse there, approximately two hours ago. Beast Boy, you've got an apartment block on the South Side. He spent about twenty minutes there, right before he went to City Hall. The last dot is Jump City Central Museum, and that's you, Raven." Cyborg paused briefly, and looked at the blue-cloaked witch before glancing over at me. "Shock, go with her."

I saw Raven stiffen slightly out of the corner of my eye, but I nodded at Cyborg anyway. Beast Boy pointed up at the map. "What about the fourth dot?" the green skinned animorph asked curiously.

"You don't recognize it, Beast Boy?" Argent asked from behind him. "That was City Hall."

"Oh." Beast Boy wilted. The room was silent for a moment.

"Starfire needs our help,and Robin's run off somewhere and won't answer his communicator. We're all she's got." Cyborg uttered quietly, breaking the silence.. The rest of us nodded solemnly. "Let's go, Titans. Let's save our friend."

I saluted, moving towards the elevator. Beast Boy ran across the room and leaped out the window, transforming into a green eagle and flapping out of sight. Argent waved at me and followed the changeling out into the night. Raven moved as well, but towards Cyborg, who bravely stood his ground as the empath stormed towards him.

I raised an eyebrow as I moved into the elevator. Pressing the button for the ground floor, I heard Raven begin to speak. "I told you that I don't need-" was all I managed to catch before the doors closed and the elevator began to fall. I glanced at my watch.

_1:09._

_Whatever's going on with Cyborg and Raven isn't your business_,I thought to myself, leaning back against the steel gray walls of the elevator and crossing my arms. I listened to the clanking of the cables as the elevator descended, as it was all I could hear. All the same, the silence of the elevator bothered me, and I wasn't sure why until I was running through the wide atrium towards the huge doors out of the tower.

It all just seemed to be so _empty_.

**.oOo.**

Raven had met up with me at the end of the land bridge, where I had been waiting for her at the top of a telephone pole, trying to ignore the descending chill in the air. She ignored my wave entirely, flying off in the direction of the museum. I stared after her blue-cloaked form, suppressed a twinge of irritation, and jolted after her. I quickly caught up with her and slowed down to her speed as we sped through the dimly lit city streets between gray and silver skyscrapers, tiny snowflakes slowly falling all around us.

Looking up at her, I opened my mouth to ask her a question, but the expression on her face did not appear to be particularly inviting. I shut my mouth again, looking ahead for the grand stone front of the Jump City Central Museum, one of the few buildings that had managed to retain its place in the downtown core of the city while everything else was built around it.

We came to an intersection; I charged my legs and flipped across the street, landing on another power wire as snow gusted about in my wake. As I jolted along, I returned to my thoughts.

Katarou had captured Starfire, but why? He had to know that doing that would only make sure that every Teen Titan would work as hard as possible to find him and throw him into prison. _He mentioned sacrifices in the mayor's office_, I reminded myself, and immediately felt nauseous at the prospect of Starfire being as horribly torn apart as the late mayor.

_We'll find you, Starfire_, I vowed silently. The alien girl had done nothing to deserve a fate that horrible.

Up ahead, I spotted the great stone gryphon that rested atop a podium in front of the museum. Jolting ahead of Raven, I leaped off the power lines and landed on the sidewalk in front of the museum with a blast of sparks, evaporating the light dusting of snow that had covered the concrete. Raven landed with a _swoosh_ beside me a moment later, her cloak fluttering around her. "Let's get this over with." she droned, pulling her hood down as she walked up the wide stone staircase towards the entrance. As I walked up the steps beside her, I pulled out my communicator.

_1:15._

The pulsating red dot was nearby, according to the map on the round screen. We came up onto the plateau before the doors, through which I could see that the museum was closed and apparently empty. I walked up to them and pulled the snow-dusted brass door handle. "Locked," I muttered, glancing at the dark Titan. The door handle was immediately encased in black; it twisted, and with a click it opened easily.

"Unlocked." Raven muttered, sweeping into the wide, empty entrance hall beyond. I shrugged and followed her, glancing around the room. Sweeping arches went high into the air, where the roof was unseen in the shadows. There was practically no light in the massive room, save for the eerie orange glow emitted by the exit sign above the entrance. We walked deeper into the dark, our footsteps loudly echoing between the stone walls.

"Creepy place at night." I muttered, looking up at a stone gargoyle, the horrid face barely visible in the orange light. I took out one of the pipes sheathed on my lower leg with my spare hand and charged energy into it – the run over here had left me filled with juice from the power wires – and held it up once it began to glow. White light cast around the room, allowing us to actually see where we were going, but I still couldn't see the roof above me.

Raven made a disappointed sound. I looked at her quizzically. "I didn't mind the dark." she uttered in explanation, pulling out her own communicator and walking in the direction the map indicated. I chuckled quietly and kept up with her, holding the pipe aloft.

As we passed through a narrow hallway, my communicator began to beep. I opened it up, blinking as Cyborg's face appeared on the screen.

"_Shock, you got anything to report?_" asked the metallic Titan. I shook my head.

"We just got here, Cyborg. All I can tell you is this place is pretty damn dark at night." We climbed another staircase, and I spotted the first advertisements on the wall for the new exhibit that the museum had planned. The pendant was front and center on all of them. "What exactly are we looking for here?"

"_Do I have to spell it out for you? You're looking for any indication of Katarou's presence, or any information that could lead us to where he's taken Starfire. If we study where he's been, we'll find out where he's going._"

"I'm pretty sure that little strategy is more useful when applied to people who _aren't_ completely insane." I muttered. We passed through a large doorway, finally spotting a small podium in the center of a wide room that was lit by a spotlight. Broken glass was littering the floor all around it. Numerous security cameras lined the walls, all oriented around the center podium.

"_I agree with you there, but it's all we've got._" Cyborg was silent for moment. "_Hey, man, how's Raven doing?_" I looked over at the empath, who looked rather aggrieved at hearing the question.

"I'm _fine_, Cyborg." Raven hissed, a vein throbbing in her forehead. I blinked at the vehemence in her voice, and looked at her a little more closely. Contrary to her words, she looked very strained. Sweat was actually beading on her forehead, the chakra gem on her forehead was gleaming, and she looked highly uncomfortable. She seemed to get only more so the closer we got to where the pendant had been.

"_Sure you are._" Cyborg replied, clearly not believing her. "_Shock, keep her safe._"

Raven looked somewhat insulted at the idea that Cyborg thought it was necessary for _anyone_ to protect her. I raised an eyebrow, and glanced back down at the communicator. Cyborg was staring back at me, an unusually worried expression on his face. "I'll do what I can." I murmured, looking around the area. Nothing popped out at me as being a clue.

"_Glad to hear it. Argent just reached the docks – she said there's evidence of some kind of meeting that occurred at the warehouse. She says there's traces of at least five people at that meeting, so it's possible that's where the bomb came from-_"

"Cyborg." I interrupted, staring over at Raven. "Shut up for a minute. Something's wrong." The dark Titan's violet eyes were wide, fixated on the spot where the pendant had obviously once laid. She was breathing hard, apparently struggling to remain standing upright. Her mouth was working wordlessly, and I heard her whisper words of her mantra, but she apparently couldn't finish. The cold feeling left by the pendant on my chest had suddenly strengthened, and my mouth went dry.

"_What do you mean something's wrong?! Is Raven okay?_"

"No, she isn't, something's wrong, she looks sick, I'm getting her out of here." I said hurriedly, moving over to grab Raven by the shoulders. I turned her around and started moving towards the exit, but she stumbled and gripped my arm in a vice grip. I looked down at her face and paled when her eyes turned a bright _green._ "Oh, _shit-_"

I launched back into the air, thrown away forcefully from Raven by the same force that had stopped me from smashing the pendant around Katarou's neck. _WHAM! _I slammed into the stone wall, and all the air in my chest rushed out in a gasp. Gasping for breath, I collapsed to the floor.

"_Shock! What the hell is going on there?_"

Shakily, I pushed myself to my feet. Raven was standing there, surrounded by a familiar haze of green light. She had fallen to her knees, but there were flashes of green appearing in the air around her, and the expression on her face made it look as though she was being torn apart from the inside. A loud roaring sound was picking up, as suddenly there was a hugely powerful gust of wind blowing through the room.

"I don't know what the hell's going on!" I shouted so I could be heard over the wind, fumbling for the pipe that had fallen from my hand when I got knocked across the room. I held out the communicator towards Raven, so Cyborg could see what was going on. "It's almost like she's lost control of her powers-"

"_Dammit, Raven – I warned you this might happen – I'm on my way, Shock, tell her to hold on!_" Cyborg interrupted, and moved away from the visible area afforded by the communicator.

"Cyborg – _Cyborg –_ dammit!" I cursed, putting the communicator away. Sure, knowing that Cyborg was coming to help was a comfort, but what the hell was I supposed to do _now_? Holding up my arm to block my eyes from the wind that seemed to be blowing intermittently to and away Raven, I moved closer to her. "Raven, hold on!" I shouted, remembering Cyborg's last words.

She immediately shot out her hand in my direction, blasting a gigantic green semicircle-shaped blade towards me. I automatically fell over onto my back, and the blade_ rocketed _past me, demolished another part of the exhibit, and gouged a deep slash into the wall. _WSSSSH! _"Holy shit!" I yelled, rolling over onto all fours as chunks of rock flew through the room.

My shouting only seemed to be drawing Raven's attention. My feet sparked beneath me as I dove forwards, barely avoiding another two blades that cut a massive X into the wall. _THKISSSH! _I skidded to a stop behind the center podium, peeking over the side just in case Raven launched another blade.

Slowly, Raven was approaching me, and the green flashes around her were becoming more constant. One of them stayed in one place for a second, and I glimpsed a maze of writhing, gleaming tentacles. I blanched, looking back at Raven. Gleaming green eyes were staring right back at me. She raised her hand, and the podium exploded in a blast of green, launching me backwards across the room.

I rolled across the ground, and started coughing violently once I came to a stop, lying on my side. My chest was freezing cold, and the feeling seemed to be spreading across my entire upper body. I rolled onto my back, gasping for breath. My eyes widened when Raven appeared above me with a _bang _and a ballooning cloud of green.

"_I have yearned to drink your blood, boy!_" boomed an unfamiliar voice out of Raven's mouth. The voice was twisted and hellish, sounding as though it was numerous voices speaking just slightly out of sync with each other, and it was thoroughly disconcerting. I tried to scramble back, but Raven waved her hand and green shackles appeared and bound my limbs to the floor.

"Raven, what are you doing?" I shouted, struggling to pull my arms free. Raven just laughed, raising her hand and aiming it at my neck.

"_This is the end, boy... you will trouble me no longer._" Raven hissed, her eyes gleaming a bright green. "_Feel the torment of – what?! YOU SHALL NOT RESIST ME, GIRL!_" Abruptly, Raven gasped, and her eyes returned to the familiar violet. The shackles around my limbs vanished and I immediately scrambled back, rising to my feet and pressing against the wall, my eyes wide.

Raven had fallen to her knees. She struggled to pull her head up to stare at me, her eyes wider then my own. "S-S-Shock, _run!_" she said in a pained voice, her hands gripping her forehead.

I took a step towards her. "Raven... what...?" I asked stupidly, trailing off when Raven's eyes blinked green, then violet again.

"I said RUN!" Raven screamed, and that surprised me enough that I actually turned and scrambled towards the exit. I heard Raven scream at the same time as the room filled with green light. I turned around at the exit, and gaped as I saw Raven grow right before my eyes. She swelled up so that she was twelve feet tall, a gigantic blue-cloaked form, and turned towards me.

Her eyes were entirely green now – no whites, no pupil, just _green_. To my horror, I noticed a second pair of eyes opening where her eyebrows had been, and those eyes were a nauseating green as well. A green mist started to rise from her, filling the room with an eerie fogginess.

"_I WILL CONSUME YOUR FLESH, BOY!_" Raven roared, sweeping towards me. I swallowed, turning around and running towards the hallway we had passed through to get here. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to duck two massive blades; I think one may have sliced off a few of the hairs on the top of my head. The blades spun ahead of me and slammed into the walls of the hallway.

_BOOOOM! _

I saw the walls shaking and threatening to collapse, and focused on my legs. The stones were falling around me as I blurred through the hallway, and I dove through to the other side just before the roof collapsed. I covered my nose to keep from breathing in dust as I pushed my aching body to stand. For a second, the place was quiet.

_KA-BLAM!_

The rubble exploded outwards, chunks of rock launching towards me from. Cursing loudly, I rolled to the side, standing and backing away as Raven's upper body curved around the corner. "_YOU CANNOT ESCAPE!_" Raven rumbled. I held out the pipe in front of me as I backed out of the room into a dinosaur exhibit. A massive green tentacle suddenly appeared from under Raven's cloak; slime dripped off it onto the floor, while a gleaming blade at the end of it slashed the air.

_THWISSSH!_ The tentacle slashed at me, the blade whirring through the air.

_C-CLANG! _I deflected it away from my pipe, and leaped over the blade of a second tentacle. A third whipped down from above. I flipped backwards, landing on the tail of a mock-up stegosaurus as the tentacle slammed into the ground, sending chunks of stone flying. I scrambled up the back of the dinosaur, skidding to a stop when another tentacle flashed in front of me, slicing through the neck of the extinct beast.

_WHUMP! _The head slammed against the floor, chunks scattering about, as I leaped off the back of the body and rolled under a hanging pterodactyl. The stegosaurus body was thrown to the side as Raven lurched towards me. As I backed away, my hand bumped into something. I gripped the thing and whipped it at Raven, blinking when I noticed I'd apparently thrown some kind of skull. A tentacle blurred in front of her face, however, and powdered the skull with ease.

I continued backing up, throwing whatever came into reach at Raven, but every try was as effective as the first. My back slammed against the wall, and I looked up at Raven's demonic face, sweating.

"_Nowhere to hide, boy..._" Raven purred evilly, a dozen slime-dripping tentacles waving all around her. Three of them shot away, and I tensed, but they dug into the sides of a tyrannosaurus model and two smaller dinosaurs I dimly remembered as being titled "deinonychus",instead of going after me. My jaw dropped when the dinosaur models glowed green, and I damn near wet myself when the massive head of the tyrannosaur turned towards me.

"You have got to be kidding me." I muttered, eyes wide, sweat pouring down my face, as the gigantic dinosaur loomed above me. "Raven, it's _me,_ what the hell is going on?" I said, hoping desperately that somewhere within the horror standing before me my teammate still remained.

"_RAVEN IS NO MORE!_" boomed the monstrosity, tentacles waving. "_THERE IS NO FUTURE FOR YOU, OR THIS CURSED PLANET – THERE IS ONLY THE WRITHING EMBRACE OF DEATH THAT AWAITS YOU!"_

I swallowed, gripping the silver pipe tightly in my right hand. As Raven – or whatever the hell she had become – described my imminent demise, I discreetly charged electricity into the pipe, holding it behind me as I did so. I kept an eye on the dinosaurs, which had started to circle around the tentacled Raven, cutting off any obvious avenue of escape.

"_Now... "Shock"... I end your torment."_ I looked up at Raven, eyes wide, and saw that she had raised every tentacle above her head, deadly weapons gleaming in the green light she was emitting. Thinking fast, I swung my arm back, slammed the pipe against the wall and released the charge.

_BOOOOOM!_

As chunks of rock blasted into the room and the immediate area filled with clouds of dust, I ducked through the hole in the wall I had just created and ran through the next room. With Raven roaring in fury behind me, I ran through the medieval history section. I squeezed between two suits of armor, charging the pipe again as I ran, aiming for an exit door I had spotted in the distance.

I heard a thunderous stomping sound moving past me, and looked up just in time to skid to a stop.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!" roared the tyrannosaur, directly into my face, which had evidently passed me to block the exit. I immediately skittered back, the fetid breath of the dinosaur nearly pushing me to vomit. Turning around, I glimpsed the green haze that announced Raven's presence in the distance and ducked into a small doorway.

Immediately after I did so, the tyrannosaur's snout rammed into the door, shaking the floor and knocking me to my feet. I scrambled back, barely avoiding the snapping jaws at my feet, and struck out reflexively. My foot smashed into the dinosaur's nose, and the huge beast made a strange keening noise and retreated from the doorway.

_Check number four from the list of things I want to do before I die,_ I thought sarcastically.

I hurriedly rose to my feet, looking around at the room I had managed to enter. The light sparking from the pipe in my hand illuminated the innumerable swords lining the walls, some gleaming, some covered in rust. I felt a drop of sweat roll down my face. It was suddenly far too silent outside of the room. There was only one exit I could see, and it led straight to an angry formerly-extinct dinosaur and the possessed body of my teammate. The exit sign above the door was the only source of illumination in the room.

_This is not good._

I heard a soft footfall at the door. I looked up and saw one of the deinonychus's eyes gleaming in the light as the huge beast prowled into the room. I swallowed as the second entered a moment later, both of them with their eyes firmly fixed upon me.

"Oh, shit..." I murmured, waving the pipe at one of the dinosaurs, then the other. I backed away from the beasts, and accidentally bumped into a small stand of scimitars. A single blade was jarred from it's mount, slowly falling to the ground. The sound of it clattering to the ground was enough to goad the deinonychuss to attack.

With a high wail, one leaped towards me, long teeth gnashing. I rolled under it, swinging the pipe to the side to knock the legs out from under the other one. It slammed to the ground with a loud thud, wailing to the other. I stood up and turned around just in time to get a faceful of teeth grinding together right in front of my face. Falling back, I slammed the second deinonychus across the face with the pipe, knocking it away to the side.

"Ryaaaaaaah!" screamed the one I had knocked to the ground, as it scrambled back to its feet. It dove at me, jaw wide open, and I dodged to the side, smashing the pipe into the dinosaur's mouth. The pipe connected solidly with the hinges of the dinosaur's jaw, and the beast flipped over entirely in the air, slamming into the stone floor with a solid _THUD!_

Spinning away, I noticed that the impact with the dinosaur's jaw had jarred the pipe loose from my hands. As I looked around for it, the second deinonychus slammed into my side, throwing me into the wall. Several swords tumbled to the ground around me, causing an echoing clatter, and as I fumbled around in the dark, I gripped the handle of a random blade.

I slowly pushed myself to my feet, looking around the room, and pulled the sword I was carrying up in front of me. The sharp edge of it glinted in the orange light from the exit sign. I spotted the deinonychuss prowling towards me in the dark again, their eyes glinting and their bodies tinted green by the – wait, _green_?

I looked over at the door, my eyes wide, and noticed a familiar green mist rolling into the room through the doorway. I heard the _whsssh-whsssh_ of several blades whirring through the air as Raven apparently approached the doorway from the room beyond. The cold sensation on my chest returned in force.

..._I can hear whispers..._

The deinonychuss took advantage of my distraction to leap at me. I heard their talons scrape against the stone floor and turned just in time to roll to the side. The dinosaurs smashed against the wall, jarring more swords off the wall. As the blades clattered to the ground, the deinonychus closest to me turned, roared, and dove.

Time seemed to slow. Spinning the sword once in my hand, I fell to one knee as the dinosaur's jaws snapped shut where my head had just been. Gripping the hilt in both hands, I swung the blade upwards in an arc.

_THWISSSH!_

Blood splattered against my face. A moment later, the deinonychus's head slammed against the ground, with the rest of the body following it to the ground a couple seconds afterwards. The legs twitched, kicking briefly at the air as the body bled out. The second deinonychus, still with my silver pipe in its mouth, screeched an ear-piercing wail and leaped at me.

I rolled underneath the attack, but the deinonychus skidded to a stop and jumped at me again. I dodged to the side, barely avoiding the snapping teeth. I started to circle the dinosaur, but it mirrored my movements as it made angry-sounding snapping noises. Unfortunately, this resulted in my standing with my back towards the door.

"_You have put up a valiant fight, but your pitiful life ends here." _Raven snarled, tentacles sliding into the room and tearing at the stones, widening the hole so that the gigantic possessed witch could fit through the gap.

I spun around and stumbled back, reaching for the pipe at my leg before I remembered that the surviving deinonychus still had the thing clenched between its teeth. A green tentacle lashed out at me, and I rolled to the side to avoid it. A line of bastard swords was sliced in twain, chunks of metal tumbling to the floor with loud clatters.

"_Why will you not DIE?!_" Raven roared, throwing three tentacles towards me. I spun the sword in my hand in front of me, but one of the tentacles wrapped around the blade and jerked it out of my hands, tossing it across the room. The second tentacle smashed into my chest, knocking me against the far wall. The third pinned me to the wall by my neck, a thick writhing green rope that left a sickly sensation of slime sliding down my front.

My chest felt as though it was being consumed in a cold fire.

Grimacing, I kicked my legs, trying to pry the tentacle away from my neck. Raven only increased the pressure, and my vision started to go black.

"_Watching the life vanish from your eyes will be a sight I shall treasure forever._" Raven snarled, leaning her four-eyed face close to mine. I grimaced, gasping for air, when Raven leaned just a bit closer. I shot out an arm, pressed it up against her chest, and _pulsed_ a blast of electricity directly into her.

_KSSZZZZTTT!_

"AAAAYAAAAUGH!" Raven shrieked, launching back through the door into the room beyond. I fell to the ground, gasping for air. The green mist left the room, curling unnaturally in the air and out of sight.

..._skrrttt..._

I looked up just in time to see the deinonychus running at me from across the room. I frowned and stood up, my lungs still searching for air. "I am seriously getting _tired of this shit!_" I roared, swinging a sparking fist into the deinonychus's snout. The dinosaur made a surprised noise as it launched backwards into the air, flying through a display of broadswords and sliding on its side along the stone ground beyond.

I followed the flying dinosaur, leaping through the blades flashing through the air from the raptor's passage, and bent down to grab the beast by the neck. "RAAAAUGGH!" I yelled, my arms sparking as energy coursed through them, and spun about in place, throwing the deinonychus into the far wall.

_THWACK! _It hit the wall with a meaty thud, and landed dazedly on the stone floor.

I looked down, noticing that the green mist was starting to creep back into the room. "Oh, _come on_..." I muttered, glancing over my shoulder at the door. I turned back to the deinonychus, which was slowly rising back to its feet. My pipe gleamed in the dim light, still tightly gripped within its jaw.

Grimacing, I focused on my legs, and charged at the dinosaur. It growled furiously at me the moment before I barreled into it, wrapping my arms around its neck and plowing into the wall.

_PKKSSSH!_

My momentum blasted us right through the stone wall, rocks and dust flying all around us as we flew into empty space beyond the wall. The deinonychus was beneath me as we started to fall; I dodged it twice as the jaws snapped towards my face, trying to focus on keeping the dinosaur _beneath _me as we fell.

Abruptly, we slammed down on solid ground. I heard a loud _snap_, and the deinonychus suddenly went still beneath me. I slowly pushed myself to my feet, trying to ignore my aching limbs, as I looked around where I had fallen. Rocks peppered the stone floor around me, remnants of my explosive escape from the room above.

Slowly turning around in place, I realized I was once again in the entrance hall of the museum. I spotted the off-putting gargoyle I had commented on before, and I blinked. _Full circle, I guess._

A light blinked on behind me. I spun around, but relaxed when I saw it was Cyborg's shoulder-lamp. I held up my hand in front of my eyes, and noticed then the massive hulking shape lying still between us. The tyrannosaur's head was lying a couple feet in front of me, a perfectly spherical hole blasted right through the skull. Gleaming red blood splattered across the ground.

"Well." I uttered, stunned. "You look like you've been having fun."

The cyborg's stern expression didn't change. "It was slowing me down. Where's Raven?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but a booming voice from above me that shook the stones beneath my feet answered for me. "_YOUR PALTRY EFFORTS ARE NOT NEARLY ENOUGH TO STOP ME! NO MORTAL CAN CEASE MY ENDLESS-_" Raven abruptly stopped talking, and raised her hand to her neck. I blinked as I spotted the dart that had appeared in her neck. The tentacles vanished into the air, and Raven immediately shrunk back to her normal size. I saw the extra pair of green eyes disappear, and familiar violet eyes stared back at me for a brief moment before Raven fell sideways and out of sight with a barely audible _thud_.

I took a step forward, then blinked and looked down at my shirt. It had abruptly lightened on my body, and I noticed that the greenish slime from the tentacles had vanished as well. "What just...?" I started, then trailed off and turned around to face Cyborg.

"She's fine." Cyborg explained as a gun folded back up into his wrist, and stared up at the room where Raven had fallen. "It's just a tranquilizer. It's the plan we came up with for this kind of situation."

I did a double-take. "Wait, this has happened _before?_ Did you know _that_ was going to happen?"

Cyborg looked down at me. "It's not my story to tell, but Raven's got a lot of history with her powers. It's not the first time she's lost control of them either, but I've never seen anything like _that._" He shook his large metallic head, red eye glowing in the dark. "I hoped it wouldn't happen, but it's been a rough couple of months for her. She isn't the kind of person to sit back and be protected, though." Silent, I watched as Cyborg stepped over the tyrannosaur's head and walked past me towards the staircase. "I'm going to go get Raven. Wait for us outside." he asked, glancing back at me.

I nodded, watching as the cyborg walked towards the upstairs staircase. "I'll want to hear an explanation for this." I called.

"You'll get one." Cyborg's voice echoed back as his light vanished from sight up the staircase. I stood alone in the silence for a moment before something gleaming in the dark caught my eye. I looked down to see my pipe still clenched in the teeth of the still deinonychus. I spotted gleaming white bones sticking out of the dinosaur's neck, explaining both the snapping sound I'd heard before as well as the sudden stillness of the beast.

Kneeling down, I gripped one end of the pipe, gritted my teeth, and pulled the gleaming pipe out from the jaw with a forceful tug. I spun it once in my hand, sending off a spray of deinonychus spit, and tucked it back into its sheath.

As I limped out of the building, I noticed that the freezing sensation on my chest from the pendant had reduced, back to the mild chill it had been before. I paused, looking up at the clouded night sky for a minute. Gusts of snow circled around me, the blizzard seemingly only increasing in strength, as the snow around my feet was already an inch deep.

**.oOo.**

I had chosen to wait against the T-Car, which was conveniently parked at the bottom of the large stone staircase in front of the museum. Beneath the looming figure of the stone gryphon, I waited for my teammates. I glanced at the watch on my wrist.

_1:47_.

I sighed quietly. The night was nowhere near done. The little adventure in the museum had given us absolutely nothing in terms of finding Starfire, and I had found myself facing my imminent demise twice in the past hour and a half. Robin had vanished somewhere into the city, and wasn't answering his communicator.

At the sound of familiar heavy footsteps, I looked up. Cyborg was descending the steps of the museum, cradling the cloaked form of Raven in his huge arms. I opened the back door, allowing Cyborg to lean over and deposit Raven into the back seat. He shut the door softly, and turned to face me. We stood there for a moment, just looking at each other, listening to the silence of the city.

"What are we going to do?" I asked, my voice quiet. The wind howled through the street.

Cyborg glanced over his shoulder at the supine Titan in his backseat. "I'm going to get Raven back to the tower, and get her set up in sickbay." He turned his gaze back towards me. "After that, I'll set up a grid search system. We'll comb the whole city. This was the only lead we had."

"How long will that take?" I persisted, pushing away the surge of hopelessness that had risen in me.

Cyborg closed his eyes. "With Robin AWOL, and Raven out of commission... four days at the least."

I shook my head. "That's too long. Who knows what Katarou might do to Starfire in the meantime?"

"You don't think I know that?" Cyborg snapped, his human eye bulging. He calmed down a moment later, raising his hands in an apologetic matter. "Sorry, man. I think we're all a little on edge."

I nodded silently. Cyborg still seemed to be struggling to restrain something, though. "Is there something you want to say?" I prompted, raising an eyebrow.

Cyborg didn't speak for a second. "I gotta ask..." he started slowly. "Why exactly were you grappling with a dinosaur in the air when I first met up with you?"

I opened my mouth to answer, then shut it again. Thinking back, it seemed like an utterly ridiculous idea to tackle a carnivorous dinosaur. "Um..." I stalled, glancing down at my leg. "It took my pipe." I muttered stupidly, gesturing at the silver pipe attached to my lower limb. Cyborg stared at me for a second, then chuckled. It was such a tired noise it pained me to hear it.

We were quiet for another moment before Cyborg moved to open the driver's side door on the T-Car. He slipped into the seat, doing up his seatbelt as he muttered, "I'll contact you when I get back to the Tower. Keep looking. We'll just have to hope for a break." I grimaced at that, slammed the door shut for him, and started up the street away from the museum. A couple seconds later, the T-Car started up and rumbled away down the street.

I paused beside a telephone pole, intending to climb up it to reach the power lines anchored at the top. I had just placed a hand on the cool concrete when my communicator beeped an unusual sequence of tones in my pocket. I pulled it out, curious, and turned it on to see... darkness. I blinked, staring at the featureless display. "Hello?" I asked tentatively, unsure of what was going on.

Silence. Then: "... _somebody _... _somebody help me ..._"

My eyes widened. "Beast Boy?" I whispered, staring at the screen with surprise. "Beast Boy, what's wrong? What happened?"

"... _Katarou ..." _Beast Boy replied, his voice disturbingly weak. I squinted, trying to make out the green Titan in the darkness he was apparently hidden within. "_... Katarou ... he found me ..._"

_What? _"Hang on, Beast Boy, just hang on. I'm on my way."


End file.
